'Make friends, not fences,' say border marchers

Dan Watman has led what he calls "border meet-ups" for the past year, in which small groups walk along the shore to the steel border fence to socialize, swap songs and do binational beach cleanups.

Yesterday Watman led about 50 border marchers to criticize a federal plan to build more fencing. He organized the peaceful protest under the slogan "Make friends, not fences."

"I honestly feel that one of the root causes of racism, violence and even terrorism is a misunderstanding between cultures," Watman said.

On Tuesday a group of Republican congressmen visited the San Diego-Tijuana border to promote legislation that would waive environmental protection laws and clear the way for completion of a 14-mile-long fence from the foothills of Otay Mountain to the Pacific Ocean.

In Arizona, a group of volunteers known as the Minuteman Project began monitoring smuggling routes Friday with the intention of calling the Border Patrol when they spot immigrants crossing the border.

Enrique Morones of Border Angels, a group that puts water and blankets in the desert for migrants who use remote routes to circumvent beefed-up border security near San Diego, participated in yesterday's march as a response to the Minuteman Project.

"If they don't realize that so many people are against them, they're going to come to San Diego," Morones said. He said he'll be leading a peaceful protest in Arizona next week.

Some of the marchers who walked a mile and a half from a parking lot at the end of Dairy Mart Road to the border fence on the beach advocated open borders. Some carried signs for workers' rights; others decried the environmental damage that would be wrought by the $58 million fence project; and others shouted anti-Border Patrol slogans.

The overarching theme of the march, though, was to build bridges of understanding with Mexicans. The walk ended with speeches near a fence so corroded that at one point a man easily slipped through a gap before returning to the Tijuana side.

A group of marchers on the south side of the fence, joined by migrants and other bystanders, met the U.S. contingent. They shook hands through the fence, had conversations and took photographs of one another.

Manuel Ojeda Martin, a migrant from Mexico City who said he intends to cross into the United States, was disappointed to hear about plans to build more fencing.

"We're not coming with the intention of robbing anyone; we're coming to work," he said. He said that Friday night he had intended to cross but saw seven of his friends get beaten and apprehended by Border Patrol agents on the beach.

A Border Patrol spokesman said he did not have information about any such arrests or confrontations on the beach.

David Flietner of the California Native Plant Society said species such as Shaw's agave and Brand's phacelia would be threatened by the plan that includes three fences and two access roads.

The California Coastal Commission ruled last year that the Border Patrol proposal to bulldoze 5.7 million cubic yards of soil from the border hills to create an access road was more destructive to the environment than necessary.

The congressmen visiting last week said it would prevent smuggling and illegal immigration and that border protection is a matter of national security.